Hermit Crabs?

[Sparx]

Does anybody here keep hermit crabs? I bought mine about a month ago, and I love them. They're such a great pet, and they're a lot of fun (which I didn't expect, to be honest)

I have three, Grumpy, Chompy, and Grover. I plan on getting more soon, but i'm currently moving, so i didn't want to put extra stress on the new ones by moving them twice.

 

[Tink2000]

My son is on the beach with his youth group and sent a message asking if he can bring home a hermit crab. I am not sure about this at all but told him yes. Are they easy to care for? Do you have any helpful info?

 

[nuttypretzel]

We have had our crabs for around 5 years. We originally had three as you are supposed to keep them in groups. We learned the hard way that sometimes you need to separate a crab that is ready to molt. One of the crabs dug a hole to molt and another came over dug her out and took her shell. The crab died shortly after that. Other than that, they are low maintenance pets. It is fun to let them loose to see where they will go. One of ours always goes under something; the other is always wants to climb. The ones we have are a freshwater type. They must have a bowl of non-chlorinated water. What you find at the beach will probably need salt water.

 

[jamimb]

A bit off topic I guess but I had to share my hermit crab story. Okay the year is 2004 and my oldest DD has just started the 4th grade. Her teacher had two hermit crabs that were the class pets so to speak. Each student got the two hermit crabs for one weekend to take home and take care of. Well my DD's weekend arrives and she is so excited. Well wouldnt it be our luck she gets the crabs two days before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. (We live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast)

Well she brings them home on Friday with a note from the teacher saying we should not have to do anything with them and they will be fed on Monday when she returns to school. Sat. Katrina has re-entered the gulf after hitting the eastern coast of Florida and by Sunday we are evacuating hermit crabs and all. Where did we evacuate to?? Why, WDW of course My DH said that if he had to pay for a hotel and for us to eat out for a few days he would rather do it at the happiest place on earth. So we take these things with us not having a clue how to take care of them. We called a relative and had him Google what the things eat.

Anyway fast forward a little. It is now October (Katrina hit in August) and my kids have not gone back to school yet (yes they missed about 7 weeks of school) My daughter is so proud she has kept these things alive for almost two months (keep in mind we were only suppossed to have them two days) and a week before school goes back they up and die. My DD was so distraught. she thought the teacher would be mad at her. Turns out they died because they had gotten too big for their shells. There was nothing we could have done. The small place on the beach where she had bought them was completely washed away in the storm.

 

[SamRoc]

We had our hermit crab Rainbow for 3 years. My niece from North Dakota came here for the summer and couldnt take it back on the plane so i kept it. It was fun here because at the Jersey shore they have hermit crab races every week, and Rainbow won a few times and my niece got a T shirt saying that her crab won the race. Very low maintenance, but make sure you get a carrier with a tight lid. there were a few nights when we first got Rainbow that she made an escape!

 

[Candy30]

We had several but only for less than a year. They kept dying. It was so cool to see them change their shells to larger ones. We had one that switched shells almost every other day until he settle on one. Be sure to keep larger sized shells so they can change if they want. We had one for almost 2 years before he died. After that we stopped getting them. They are easy to take care of and fun to watch thier different personalities.

We had one that like to climb and another that would seek dark places.